Kinneret (), also known as Moshavat Kinneret to distinguish it from the neighbouring settlement of Kvutzat Kinneret (which is organised as a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

), is a moshava on the southwestern shore of the

Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Located in the north of the Jordan Valley, 6 kilometers south of Tiberias, it falls under the jurisdiction of Emek HaYarden Regional Council. The village sits at around 185 meters below sea level, and in it had a population of . Kinneret Farm, an experimental training farm, was founded at the same time as the moshava and adjacent to it, as a separate and autonomous project.

Name

The name of Moshavat Kinneret derives from an ancient

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

, which was however located close to the other, northern end of the lake's western shore. According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Naphtali According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the sixth son of Jacob, the second of his two sons with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite tribe of Naphtali. Some biblical commentators have suggested that the name ''Naphtali'' ma ...

(Joshua 19:35), while the area of modern Moshavat Kinneret was probably also part of Naphtali, or (depending on interpretation) of

Issachar Issachar () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fifth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's ninth son), and the founder of the Israelites, Israelite Tribe of Issachar. However, some Biblical criticism, Biblical scholars view this as ...

or Zebulun. In the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Bet Yerah was not inhabited during the time of the kingdoms of Israel and is thus not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, its main relevance to the moshava being that it gave its name to the local high school, which is attended by children from the entire area, not just Moshavat Kinneret. The Roman-era site known as Tarichaea is said to have been in the vicinity.

History

Establishment in 1908

Two entities were established at this location: the village or "moshava", and a training farm known as Kinneret Farm or Kinneret Courtyard. The village was part of the settlement project of Baron Edmond de Rothschild and the Jewish Colonisation Association, while the Kinneret Farm was the initiative of the Palestine Bureau of the Zionist Organisation. The village and the farm shared infrastructure (health, security, cultural life), but served different purposes. The village was established as a frame for families willing to settle the land and start their own business.

After the establishment of the state

After Israeli independence the village became a local council with an area of 7,000 dunams. However, as part of a local government reorganisation in 2003, it came under the control of Emek HaYarden Regional Council.

Museums

The moshav operates a history museum in a building that housed the first local hospital. The restored nearby Kinneret Farm also functions as a museum and educational center. The museum presents life at the Farm, personalities that lived there and national projects emanating from their work. The restored "Motor House", the first mechanised pumping station, is set among orchards and eucalyptus groves and faces Yardenit from across the Kvutzat Kinneret access road. It can also be visited.

Notable residents

* Yitzhak Tabenkin (1888–1971) – founding member; Zionist activist and politician, co-founder of the kibbutz movement. His son Moshe Tabenkin (Hebrew article here; 1917-1979) – poet, educator and soldier – was born in the moshava.

Cemetery

To the east of the village, across the road from the restored Kinneret Farm, is the historic . It has been used mainly by the three "Kinnerets" – the moshava, the farm, and from 1913 on by the kvutza. A great many pioneers and leaders of the Labour Zionist movement are buried there, making it into a secular pilgrimage site, a focus of Israeli "civil religion". Among those buried here are Berl Katznelson, Nachman Syrkin, Rachel Bluwstein, Ber Borochov, Moses Hess, Avraham Herzfeld and Shmuel Stoller. The first grave was dug in 1911 for Menahem "Mamashi" Shmueli (Shmulevich).

References

External links

Bird flu suspected at Moshav KinneretMoshavat Kinneret Collection
on the Digital collections of Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library, University of Haifa {{Authority control Villages in Israel Populated places established in 1908 Jewish villages in the Ottoman Empire Populated places in Northern District (Israel) 1908 establishments in the Ottoman Empire Sea of Galilee